Jim Taylor's Columns - 'Soft Edges' and 'Sharp Edges'

There’s a tasteless joke about an old man who died peacefully in his sleep. He just closed his eyes, took a final breath, and was gone. “That’s how I want to die,” said his son. “Not terrified and screaming, like the passengers in his car.” I’m one of those passengers, and I’m riding in a car called Earth. And I’m terrified that a bunch of drivers may be taking the planet we’re all riding on off a cliff. The driver may be Donald Trump, if he gets to be president of the most powerful nation on earth. Or it may be Bashar al Assad, who is not president of a powerful nation, but whose regime has been catalyst to a civil war that has generated the greatest flood of refugees since World War II. Or it may be the faceless CEOs of massive corporations like Exxon and Goldman Sachs, who are quite content to let the planet crash as long as they get their bonuses.